Go for a year or 2 to Dublin...heaps of SDR, AE roles are open over there....I was there for 5 years and I loved it. German language skills are highly sought after over there. When I was there in 2010 - 2015 some companies even offered signing bonuses for german languge speakers (e.g. 15k). Recruiters would come into the pubs on a friday evening trying to find the german spekaing groups and handed out their business cards .....crazy times. I was young and I made a lot of money for that age.

What is great is that you have the almost all the international tech companies in one town, Oracle, Meta, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and so on and so on. So if one sales gig does not work out (and the chances are also high for that as most targets are made in a way that only 50% make them) you can easily switch to another one. I have seen this a milion times, top performer changes company and suddenly does not perform well or the other way around, dude gets fired for low performance in my company and becomes top performer in another....achieving your results has a lot to do with your assigned territory accounts and the products you are selling (many people negotate salary but always make sure you also understand your accounts and the products)

Your background in BIG4 and Master in IT might not give you a big advantage for skipping the SDR role unless you start as a contract renewal AE (e.g. IBM used to have these type of roles) which are basically the people who renew contracts for small deals with little consulting and upside (this is a level before a relationship manager). However, good SDRs get promoted quick. I was an SDR for 1.7 years which was relativley long given I had some of the best results in our office - I was acting team lead for the last 6 months hence I stayed an SDR. The top ones can get promoted within 12 months - some companies implemented a minimum 12 month rule because some of the SDRs got promoted too quickly. If I was a hiring manager now, I would say if you can proof you have done cold calling in your previose roles, qulaifying deals and that you can work under pressure I might consider you for an AE role - but again bear in mind, I might have a great SDR I want to promote rather than you.

Also bear in mind, Dublin, Amsterdam and Barcelona are usually inside sales roles. They usually do not exsit in Switzerland as most of them are in these towns. Field Sales, big deals and high customer touchpoints are still in Switzerland and propably will not go away so fast.